when i'm alone i'd rather be with you
by samiapple
Summary: If he was looking for her sympathy, he wouldn't get it. She just didn't care anymore. She wasn't the same Bonnie Bennett who could still find it in herself to show the smallest bit of mercy to the most astringent of monsters. *AU of 6x17 snow scene*


i.

The knife is heavy in her palm.

The jaded silver is weighed and cold against the numbed skin of her hand. But she can still feel every ridge, the bottom edge of the chilled metal is pressed to her palm, printing its form onto her. She's gripping the knife so hard that she's sure she'd open her palm just to find small droplets of smeared blood on them.

Narrowed mossy eyes stare at the scruffy head of brown hair slightly bobbing in front of her, white flakes of snow fall and then disappear into deep brown locks. Only the sound of worn boots crunching against the icy ground fill the baited silence.

He looks different.

She'd noticed that much when he'd shown up at the night rave with deep regret etched onto new rugged features and absolutely reeking of a palpable desperation that had fogged the already humid air.

She'd felt a slight ringing in her ears then, as she saw the man who quite literally made her life hell barrell right back into said life with a most pathetic excuse for an apology.

But regardless, she still noted the way his shoulders had broadened and how his face had been dusted with a light stubble. It made him look less like the innocent doll from her horror movie nightmares and more like a man.

But it's not like she cared. It didn't matter what he looked like now. Or how he had supposedly changed. Not when he was going to die anyways. By _her_ hands.

She needed this, and above everything else, he deserved it.

She wanted to watch the life leave his annoyingly jubilant eyes with a mocking arch of her brow, just as he had done when he had decided to plunge his knife into her and leave her to wallow in loneliness.

It was her fault in the first place for letting her guard down for even the briefest of moments, for feeling that sickening swell of pity deep in her chest at the way his normally apathetic gaze had softened when he'd told her about his father's abuse back in his old blood-stained home. It was her fault for thinking that there was even a shred of humanity left inside of him.

She wouldn't make that mistake again.

Not even when those eerily imploring eyes of his had steadied themselves on her the minute they had landed in 1903 and refused to let go. If he was looking for her sympathy, he wouldn't get it.

She just didn't care anymore.

He had hardened her. She wasn't the same Bonnie Bennett who could still find it in herself to show the smallest bit of mercy to the most astringent of monsters.

And she knew that when the time came, she wouldn't show mercy. He wasn't the kind of person who deserved it. Not from her.

People like him invoke the kind of fear and anger that's derived only from the deepest and darkest parts of someone.

It was that kind of reckless anger that motivated her to act crazy enough to bury a pickaxe in his chest without blinking. The kind of frantic fear that's forced its way through her dreams and twisted them into nightmares. When she's alone late at night with no other company but her thoughts and the stagnant darkness of her own bedroom, all she can see is her, killing him, or him, killing her.

Or her, killing herself.

He's turned every restless night since she's been back to the real world into a horror story.

She feels kind of like a horror story herself as she stalks behind him, her murderous eyes laser focused on his tall form as they trudge leisurely through the bleak, snow-covered forest.

They weren't getting any closer to the 1903 ascendant and she knew this, but he was the one who had decided to foolishly trust her "trust" in him.

The knife raises on its own accord, her cold numb hand raises with it.

The chilled metal is about to embed itself deep and relentlessly into the meaty part of his left shoulder.

And she can see it, she can practically _taste_ it, but he turns around.

He turns, maybe to say something to her, but she'll never know. She thinks for a moment that he knew she was going to do this, and that's why he turned so suddenly. But it's in the way she can see that aching disappointment abruptly dim the blue coloring of his eyes that makes her know that he hadn't known.

But she doesn't care.

She watches his face fall, his cut jaw slackening as she lunges towards him. Her chest feels so tight that she thinks for a terrifying moment that it might constrict severely enough to stop her heart.

She's now aiming for anything at this point, her previous surprise plan and aim of attack all but forgotten. Because now she _needs_ to get this over with, before her heart actually stops.

The knife attempts to lodge itself into the center of his chest, but there's something in the way. A hand. A gloved palm blocks her target.

She only barely hears him crying out. His voice is sharp through the bristling of trees as yells of "Wait! Bonnie! Wait!", are puffed into the cool air.

Her stomach twists and her chest tightens even more as she plunges the knife further into his hand. She can see the dark blood steadily seeping through the gloved fabric.

But it's not enough.

She wants to drill through the bones of his palm and straight into his heart.

She doesn't know when her numb hand loosens its grip on the handle, but it loosens enough for him to grab onto the pointed end still partially embedded in his mangled hand and tug the knife from her grip.

She watches, her stomach still twisting horribly as he yanks the rest of the knife from his palm. He's no longer yelling at her to stop, she thinks.

"_Phasmatos Incendia." _

Both of their chests heave as the bloodied metal bursts into flames right as it hits the snowy ground with a decisive thud.

She turns on her heel and walks away.

ii.

He follows her back to where they came from, trying desperately to get her attention.

She ignores him.

She wonders briefly why he hasn't retaliated yet. Her back is turned to him, leaving her defenseless, he had melted her only weapon, and she quite literally tried to kill him just a few moments ago. And, isn't he supposed to be some kind of all-powerful coven leader?

The fact that he could best her if it came down to it doesn't unnerve her when it probably should.

What she cares about is the fact that she didn't successfully kill him, or injure him, or strand him. Right now all she wants is to go home and hopefully never see him or his _stupidly_ disappointed face ever again.

He's still relentlessly throwing pleads at her stony back, his deep voice coming out slightly hoarse and ragged from trying to keep up with her brisk pace. Or maybe from the blood loss.

Either way, he keeps trying as she follows the trail of softening foot prints from earlier. He's heedlessly alternating between apologizing, asking for forgiveness, and relaying his hurt.

She's not listening, but even she knows that under all his unremitting vindications he's still trying to make her understand that _he's sorry he's sorry, he's sorry_.

She won't.

She's _still_ not listening, but her rapid steps falter just slightly when she hears him mutter dejectedly under his breath.

"I even went back to '94 for you, and you still won't believe me."

She whips around faster than the speed of light.

"_What_ are you talking about?"

He tells her.

He tells her all about how, while her best friends sat and made cupcakes for her birthday, he went back to the prison world to save her from herself and lead her to her ticket out.

She tells him that he's lying.

But she knows that he's telling the truth. He tells her too much about that day for him not to have been there, and it makes perfect sense as to why Damon had conveniently left out this piece of information. If she had known, he wouldn't have suggested this form of "closure" for her.

So, she steadies her breath again after realizing that her heart rate has spiked to a steady hammer, turns around, and keeps walking.

She thinks that she still wants to kill him, but now she wants to kill Damon too.

iii.

She waits until they've safely teleported back to the boarding house to explode.

At first, everything is dead silent, and then—a choking noise sounds from besides her.

"Damon? Are you okay?"

It's Elena, who immediately clutches onto Damon's forearm as he raises a large veiny hand to claw at his throat.

His piercing eyes are locked on Bonnie's narrowed ones and suddenly everyone else's are on her too.

"Bonnie! What are you doing?"

She lets out a slow stream of air through flared nostrils and, ignoring Elena's wide-eyed stare, the tendrils of her magic tighten further around Damon's trachea.

"You knew."

Bonnie's voice comes out low and menacing and Damon makes a slight gurgling sound in response. His face is beginning to turn a peachy color, but the way his eyes dart to Kai's form lets her know that he knows exactly what she's talking about.

"Bo-nnie...let...me...explain..."

She loosens her grip slightly.

She can see Lily Salvatore's eyes narrow out of the corner of her vision. She doesn't pay any mind to her.

"I...thought...I...was...hel-ping—"

"—That's bullshit and you know it!"

Her previously contrived calmness unhinges at the ends. The anger erupts through her body and Damon sinks to his knees. She's lost herself and she knows it, but right now, it's what he deserves.

"You will unhand my son this instant!"

It happens quickly.

Not her unhanding Damon, but everything else.

There's a flurry of red hair in her face coupled with tarring veins and sharp nails wrapping around her throat, while an alarmed scream floats from across from her.

And then there are warm hands gripping her forearms from behind and the world is tilting on its axis until it recenters in Damon's bedroom.

iv.

"I could have handled her myself."

"Right...would that've been _after_ she choked you to death, or right before?"

The almighty coven-leader had found a way to conveniently swoop in at the last second and teleport them upstairs. And now since he had "saved her" from Damon's mother, he suddenly thinks that it's okay to mock her.

He's wearing a slightly amused smirk, his thick eyebrows are quirked and his arms are crossed over his chest as he peers down at her expectantly. Like she should dignify him with a response.

With all of her conniption directed towards Damon, he must've forgotten that she still hates him.

She doesn't like the smug look that's stretching out his features, so she allows her own to contort to one of self-righteous-disgust, and turns around.

She knows she's acting like a child, but she can't even look at him.

She hears him let out a low sigh from behind her. The sound of his breath does nothing but reminds her that he should be dead.

"Bonnie…"

He's serious now. She can tell in the way his voice steepens and grazes at her forlornly, p_athetically_. The end of the low drawl of her name teeters on a growl, and she wonders if he even knows that he's doing it.

Regardless, they both know what's coming next, he's started his apologies like this a million times since they'd stepped foot in 1903. She's tired of hearing her name like this on his tongue.

"I will do _anything_ to make it up to you. I just—I _need_ you to forgive me."

He's apologized to her so many times already, and yet it still feels like a slap to the face. Because how could he _possibly_ ask her to reconcile with everything he's done to her, or to appease him of his own self-deserved guilt?

So she ignores the last part of his sentence. Because now she's focusing on how he said he'd do _anything_ to make it up to her and all she can think of is what the blood would look like dribbling from his chin as she plunges her knife into the thick tendons of his heart over, and over, and over again. And she knows she shouldn't because he saved her life, but the scene plays over and over until her fingers twitch for the knife that's been melted and buried under piles of snow.

"Anything?"

She surprised by how soft her voice becomes in the thoroughs of contemplating abrupt cruelty. She's turned around now and she can feel her intent gaze desperately clawing at his.

There's no expression on her face, no tilt to her curved lips or arched brows. There's only her, rabidly burning herself through him so that he can finally see her. She shows him through her stare what she wants, desperately _needs_ from him in order to gain her forgiveness.

_Let me kill you. Let me kill you. _

She sees his eyes darken at her gaze, and despite herself, a tendril of fear wraps itself tightly along her spine. The eyes of her nightmares hadn't darkened like that since she had been trapped with him on a never ending May 10th.

She knows that they've darkened like that because now he knows what she so furiously wants, but he may decide to kill her before she does.

He kisses her instead.

v.

The slapping noise that reverberates through the room is deafening.

She's never hit anyone so hard before.

Not even when defending herself against Originals, or doppelgängers, or creeps trying to skim the underside of her cheerleading uniform when she was a freshmen.

She thinks that she should feel disgusted, violated and desecrated. But she doesn't.

She can't even _think_. There's only a fiery bubbling in her stomach and a furious white hot flush of magic scraping through her insides and up her heaving chest.

She feels numb as she stares at him, like she may cry or scream at any second.

His eyes are still dark, but his jaw is now clenched shut and she feels that familiar dark, reckless anger and chill of fear sweep through her scraped insides. But this time, she can't stop looking at the bright red splotch printed on the tender skin of his cheek bone.

The plump curve of his lower lip is split and she watches transfixed as the crimson blood pools and then slightly oozes until it fades on the underside of his mouth. She wants to tear through his lips until that crimson blood is splattered along his chin. She thinks that maybe, she could kill him this way.

She hadn't realized that she had been staring at his mouth with a ravenous look on her face until he's rushing towards her again.

This time, she kisses him back.

There's a bed literally 5 feet away from them, but they fuck against the wall.

They've only kissed for a few seconds before her hands are shoving his pants to his ankles, and his are pinning her body to the wall behind them.

They fuck like animals, panting into each other's mouths, letting out anguished cries of anger and fustration at not being able to get physically closer.

He's hitting her where it hurts the most, his skin is slapping ruthlessly against hers, just like how hard she'd slapped him moments earlier.

She doesn't want to have to look at him like this, because now, she's scared.

She's scared she's fucked him back into his old self, to the one who would've never let remorse or guilt fog the bright blue of his eyes, and she suddenly wishes she could take it all back, before he fucks that last bit of Luke's shame and degradation out of his system.

So she tries to escape from the furiously fervid look on his face, but his strong hands are closed tightly around her neck, pinning her head to the wall, forcing her to watch as he gets wrecked with pleasure over and over again.

This type of torrid, painful, sex doesn't actually feel good. It feels desperate and pathetic, but she comes so hard, a sob is ripped from her throat and her scraped up insides feel like they've strangled themselves.

He climaxes quietly, which surprises her, and it's extended in time as nothing but a steady exhale of air leaves his system while he clutches her to the sweaty film of his shirt. But his body still trembles long after he sets her down, and she has to pry his clamped and clammy hands from her waist.

She can't help but spare him one glance as she opens the door to Damon's room, the muffled sound of Elena and Damon's voices drifts towards her.

She leaves him staring at the now empty space of the wall in front of him.


End file.
